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The hypothesis that diets rich in total and saturated fat and poor in unsaturated fats increase the risk for cardiovascular disease is still vividly debated. The aim of this study was to examine whether total fat, saturated fat, or unsaturated fat intakes are independent risk factors for cardiovascular events in a large population-based cohort. Conclusions: In relation to risks of cardiovascular events, our results do not suggest any benefit from a limited total or saturated fat intake, nor from relatively high intake of unsaturated fat. Leosdottir, Margret; Nilsson, Peter M.; Nilsson, Jan-Åke; Berglund, Göran

Daily intake of fruit and vegetables was associated with a lower risk of coronary heart disease when combined with a high dairy fat consumption...but not when combined with a low dairy fat consumption. Sara Holmberg, Anders Thelin and Eva-Lena Stiernström. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2009, 6, 2626-2638.

In every industrialized nation, the movement to reform health care has begun with stories about cruelty. The Canadians had stories like the 1946 Toronto Globe and Mail report of a woman in labor who was refused help by three successive physicians, apparently because of her inability to pay. In Australia, a 1954 letter published in the Sydney Morning Herald sought help for a young woman who had lung disease. She couldn't afford to refill her oxygen tank, and had been forced to ration her intake "to a point where she is on the borderline of death." In Britain, George Bernard Shaw was at a London hospital visiting an eminent physician when an assistant came in to report that a sick man had arrived requesting treatment. "Is he worth it?" the physician asked. It was the normality of the question that shocked Shaw and prompted his scathing and influential 1906 play, "The Doctor's Dilemma." The British health system, he charged, was "a conspiracy to exploit popular credulity and human suffering."

This article discusses new Duke University research showing a highly significant correlation (p = 0.007) between higher vitamin D intake and MRI brain lesions (http://www.fasebj.org/cgi/content/meeting_abstract/21/6/A1072), as well as the potential for lesion reversal. These lesions have been associated with cognitive impairment, stroke, psychiatric disorders and mortality. This article also discusses the levels of vitamin D and calcium needed to avoid osteoporosis and vascular calcification in the light of new research on blockage of the vitamin D receptor due to bacterial products and elevated 25D.

Study "determines" that intake of vitamin D3 and calcium would prevent 58,000 new cases of breast cancer and 49,000 new cases of colorectal cancer annually in the U.S. and Canada. [FIND STUDY, VERIFY]

Study "determines" that intake of vitamin D3 and calcium would prevent 58,000 new cases of breast cancer and 49,000 new cases of colorectal cancer annually in the U.S. and Canada. [FIND STUDY, VERIFY]

Unlike simple starvation, where body fat is lost preferentially, cancer cachexia is associated with depletion of both fat and skeletal muscle mass. Although anorexia is frequently associated with cachexia a reduction of nutrient intake alone could not explain the progressive wasting. Instead the process appears to be mediated by circulatory tumor-produced catabolic factors acting either alone or in concert with certain cytokines. A knowledge of the mechanisms involved should lead to the development of effective pharmacological intervention. Effective therapy should not only improve the quality of life of the cancer patient, but should lead to an increase in survival. Since cachexia is so common in cancer host products may be required for tumor homeostasis. Thus further knowledge in this area may lead to the development of new agents for the treatment of cancer.

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